Mandi Lennard pays tribute to Joan Burstein CBE.
Photo by Ian Gavan/Getty Images
Mandi Lennard pays tribute to Joan Burstein CBE aka Mrs B, globally recognised fashion doyenne, who launched a retail empire with her late husband Sidney Burstein in the 70s.
Janet-from-the-stockroom called yesterday to check I'd heard the news that the formidable Joan Burstein aka Mrs B, 100 years old, had passed away peacefully in her sleep on Friday, shortly followed by her good friend Robert Forest, who also mentioned she had still been playing Scrabble at 5pm every day. For those of us who were 'Browns family', still the closest of friends to this day, this news was loaded with a poignancy. In that moment our lives flashed in front of us, we were back there on the 90s shop floor of Browns, on South Molton Street, the epicentre of the fashion world - Diana Ross just dashed downstairs to [Romeo] Gigli, Nicky Squire with hair down to her ankles dumped her Rolls Royce on South Molton Lane and burst into Shop 24 accompanied by her [pet] blue wolf, Madonna was trying on kaleidoscopic, fringed Pucci dresses in Shop 27, bending down to the floor squealing to reveal the matching knickers. Everyone rushed down from the rabbit warren of offices above - including accounts, alterations and the buying department - word had spread that Seal was upstairs in Shop 23 (Men's) having just won 3 Brit Awards the night before. Issy Blow was trying on a dress - she never used the fitting room, and Kylie and Michael Hutchence furtively perused racks of Alaïa, with Björk still a Sugarcube, rifling through Gaultier and Ozbek. Alexandra Shulman had just been made Editor-in-Chief of British Vogue, and we had to send a boned-front military Ozbek jacket (Spring/Summer '92 collection) for her to wear to her first Fashion Week. Mrs Burstein in Maud Frizon heels and her favourite M&J Savitt hammered gold jewellery, took me aside to say she thinks Birkenstocks were going to be a thing and we should buy them, while Cindy Crawford shouted over to zip up the Alaia dress she was trying on to wear for MTV's House of Style, while the Saturday afternoon club kids headed straight for the Stephen Sprouse dayglo jeans.
This frenetic snapshot was our lives, a whirlwind created by Mrs B, who single-handedly introduced Calvin Klein, Ralph Lauren, and Giorgio Armani to Europe through Browns, introducing women to the luxury of Donna Karan's 'Seven Easy Pieces,' metallic panelled Giorgio di Sant' Angelo evening gowns, jewelled Christian Lacroix, the silken simplicity of Zoran, the phenomenon of Jil Sander - pant suits for women! - Patrick Kelly's body con dresses with a cascade of oversized primary-coloured buttons, artist Barry Kieselstein-Cord's exotic skin belts adorned with hand-tooled silver animal buckles, Galliano's grad collection window, Browns even opened London's Comme des Garçons store, such was Mrs B's conviction. A Fendi 'baguette' in denim? YES PLZ.
I was very close to her and her husband Sidney, they felt like Jewish grandparents, occasionally going round to their Vale of Health apartment overlooking Hampstead Heath, where Mrs B proudly kept a precious book given to her by Hussein Chalayan, next to her on the coffee table by the sofa. I worked with them for 7 years from the late 80s as a buyer, and later launched Browns Focus when I moved into PR, my first office located above their garage.
Positioned next to a huge speaker in our private box at a Katharine Hamnett show at Cirque du Soleil in Paris, I was horrified once the show started that its raucous sound track was blaring right into Mrs B's eardrums, and felt so terrible she had to endure it, yet she beamed all the way through, clapping and shouting 'bravo!'.
We went to buy Vivienne Westwood, the first store to sell it outside her own shops, and back from the appointment, Mrs B took me aside to say would I go up to accounts to ensure they know to pay the moment they receive the invoice as Vivienne was still a small business and it's important she's supported.
She was incredibly hands on, I'd meet her upstairs in the Buying Office most afternoons to 'do tickets,' when we would go through clothing labels from the days' sales, noting them down one by one, before it was all computerised.
I last saw Mrs B before Christmas when I was invited round for tea with the journalist Lisa Armstrong. Now living in Ibiza which she utterly loved, she was in town for the week, the day before lunching with her girl gang of Nicole Farhi, Miriam Stoppard and Tricia Guild. She was utterly glowing, beaming, looking gorgeous in vibrant printed silk separates, and, always repping, she wore delicate layers of jewelled 'dancing duet' necklaces hand-made in Ibiza by her granddaughter Natasha Collis, the look finished with Pierre Cardin slides.
She was so engaged - and engaging - from start to finish, devouring all the latest industry gossip we shared. It was an afternoon supercharged by incredible reminiscences, precious memories, and mutual affection. It was a privilege to have learned so much from her, Browns was such a fertile environment, you learnt everything at a startling rate, a world she created by sheer will and passion, giving a launchpad to so many designers who went on to become household and historic names, reinforcing her remarkable legacy.